


227. sun on a black sky

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [279]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Sarah,” Helena says.“Yeah,” Sarah says, her voice rasping its way through the desert and through hours on a plane.“Where are we going.”





	

They stumble out of the airport, the three of them – Helena still stubbornly clinging to her cowboy hat – and Sarah blinks up at the sky. The sun is rising. They left Mexico early in the night, and the sun is rising. Her brain, confused and so achingly tired, breaks when it looks up. Sarah looks back down.

There’s still dust in her knuckles – or it feels like there is, no matter how much she twists her knuckles against the palm of her other hand. Sarah looks across the road, at Helena, at Siobhan, at anything except the sky or her own body. Her own hands.

Benjamin picks them up and Sarah and Helena slide into the backseat; Siobhan takes the front. Benjamin and Siobhan start up a hushed conversation about safehouses that Sarah’s brain slips away from. She rests her head against the window.

“Sarah,” Helena says, and Sarah tilts her head just enough to see Helena. She’s finally taken off the hat; her hair looks like it’s going to eat her.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, her voice rasping its way through the desert and through hours on a plane.

“Where are we going.”

Shit. “Uh,” Sarah says. “Back to S’, I guess. Then – then we’ll see, yeah?”

“I don’t want to be trouble,” Helena says, picking at her fingers. “If you need a safe house.”

“You’re not _trouble_ , Helena,” Sarah lies. “Want to make sure you’re safe, too, don’t we? Not like I wanna go all the way to Mexico to get you back ‘n then have some shite happen.”

She meant it as a joke, the sort of easy ribbing she and Felix have been trading back and forth for years: _you didn’t graduate high school – yeah I’m sorry who was it who begged cheap beer off me for all four years huh?_ – _piss off – you piss off_ – but it’s Helena, so of course it doesn’t work. Her shoulders slump.

“I _am_ trouble,” she says. “Because you had to come to Mexico to find me, and you had to leave our _sestra_ s behind, and now I am here, and there is no place for me.”

“Come on, meathead,” Sarah says. “That’s not true.”

Helena doesn’t say anything. Sarah swallows, fumbles in the cracks of her mind for something to say – talking Helena down, again, and this time with no gun as incentive. _You saved my life_ , but that doesn’t work twice.

“You deserve to be here just as much as anybody,” she says. “I went after you ‘cause you’re my _sister_ , Helena, and we have to stick together. Not ‘cause you’re my bloody – responsibility, you understand? Because we’re family. And I needed you here with us – we all need to stay together.”

Helena’s eyes are latched onto Sarah like desperate hands grabbing for a lifeline. How many kind things has she heard in her life, Sarah wonders. How many times has someone asked her to stay. She reaches out and squeezes Helena’s hand, tight. “Don’t you dare think you’re not part of this family. You had a dance party with us, that sorts it forever.”

Helena’s face cracks open and she laughs. “The rules of the dance party,” she says.

“Exactly.”

Helena looks at their two hands and then plonks her other hand on top of Sarah’s, so that it’s a weird sandwich pile. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hand once it’s there, so the two of them just look at the pile for a second before Helena looks back up. “But,” she says. “If it’s safer. If – if it does not put you in trouble again. I can go.”

“Thanks,” Sarah says quietly. “Promise I’ll tell you if that’s true.”

Helena nods at her and then stares at their hands again. “Thank you,” she says, “for coming to find me, _sestra_.”

“Had to bring you home,” Sarah says.

“Home,” Helena echoes. She lifts up their stacked hands and then flips one of her hands so she’s holding Sarah’s palm between her own. Her hands are gentle, like she’s holding a bird she doesn’t want to break.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. Helena’s gaze finds hers again and she smiles, quiet and shy, before she lets Sarah’s hand go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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